Oriental Art

Konnichiwa!
Nei Ho!

I belong to an online group called Oriental Stamp Art on Yahoo.  We have a lot of fun with swaps and challenges!  This is my third year of participating in a Black + one colour mingle.  We each make one card and the coordinator lets us know who we are to send it to.  Sometimes it's in Canada or US and sometimes its overseas!  This month was Black + Burgundy (deep red) so I pulled out my appropriate papers and embossing powders and came up with this card. 

Deep read shimmer paper was the card base (5x6.5") with a black layer to mat the rest.  Deep red ribbon wrapped all around the left side of the card front.  The inner circles are 1.5" in deep red metal, shimmer red and velvet red paper and the outer ones are 1.75" in black shimmer paper.  The postoid is also a Magenta stamp, stamped and embossed in black on red shimmer paper, then matted on black shimmer paper, then dry embossed red metal. Magenta peel off kanji and word 'friendship' finish off the detail.

Gotta go!  Thanks for looking! Domo Arigato!

New Calendars

Hi all!

My hubby requests a calendar for his desk each year.  I have not yet complied with this request yet this year. (boy is my face red!) I thought I'd share last year's though. 
I started with a generic calendar (3x4") and filled in the dates by hand. Then I highlighted the stats and personal dates in yellow.  I found a picture of our baby for each month, trimmed and matted it appropriately.  Then accented the page with the same two washi tapes.  Final touch is the month stamped and embossed. Magenta made this month stamps.

Finished Page!

How do you do?
I'm doing great!

As promised, I have my first finished page in my altered Alice book.

I stamped all over the two pages with various images from my TJ Designs Alice Stamps.

 

 Used my colour wheel to pick out a contrastingcolour for the corners and accent. I also used some swirl rub ons to add more detail.

 

Used a die cut to circle the cut out hole (yes, I planned for this element) and backed it with the same accent colour.  I then covered the whole thing with Glossy Accents.

I picked up a gorgeous postcard by Jamine Becket-Giffith at Walt Disney World, Florida and decided this was a good place to add it.

And the final look is this!

Happy New Year!

WOW!
I knew it had been a while, but not that it has been over a month!
Sorry everyone!
Family health and family death has kept me rather uncreative for the last month, but now that is behind and a new year is ahead!

 See this picture?

I've been dreaming of Alice and her friends a lot lately... I am a Disney nut to start with, but something about Alice makes me feel CREATIVE!  So I have started the process of altering a book to turn it into my depository of a variety of Alice inspired art.

I started with an old school dictionary I found at Value Village:

Chose some handmade paper from Art Neko, covered the outside and glued the spine that was ripped and starting to separate from the book.  I added some Alice in Wonderland copied pages from a collage kit to the fron and back covers.

I glued quite a few pages together at the edges from the back until I had the thickness I wanted and after it had dried for a few days, I cut out a circle through the thickness.  (SHARP exacto knife needed for this!)

Then I painted the surround of this page with two shades of green Glaze paints.  They are shimmery and transluscent that allow to see what is under the colour. Curious about what's next?  Me too! :)

I'll be showing you some more of this and other Alice inspired art over the next couple months...
See you next time!

Another Digi Stamps 4 Joy

Hey there!
I had fun with the first card I created with these little tags, so I created another one, this time for the dog club I belong to.  Check out Digi Stamps 4 Joy for their monthly challenges.
Simple was the name of the game here.  I printed the tag at 4x6" and coloured the tree and present with Stampin' Up markers and Zig Luna metallic pens.  The dog stamp is one in my stash.  I then covered the background with red watercolour.  Michaels plaid washi tape was used in place of my usual ribbon and then I added a snowflake metal charm at the top.  The greeting is an old one from my stash.

Have fun creating!

Digi Stamps 4 Joy Challenge

Hi All!

I've been happily creating Christmas cards for my mom and ourselves.  I saw this challenge on Digi Stamps 4 Joy for November and an idea came to mind for it, so here we go!

The monthly image must be used for each month's challenge, so I emailed and received the images a few days ago.

I started by colouring in the Tree image after printing it about 4x6".  I traced the tag onto paper from a pad in my stash then fussy cut the tree and present from the original tag and adhered it in the same spot.  I printed the snowflake tag EXTREMELY small and added it to the present.  A coloured acetate layer was added to the top.  I tied it all together with some Santa ribbon from last year's present!  The 5x6.5" card was covered with lightbulb patterned paper from my stash, then another piece of ribbon from that gift.  Added the tag and voila!  Done card!

New Work

Hello! 
Long time no chat!
And that is my fault...
We got back from our trip and had to deal with a lost package that included some personal items that were one of a kind.  It took all my energy and ambition to get it resolved. 

As most will receive this on November 11, I offer this tribute to our fallen citizens:

So now I'm back to playing!
I needed to complete an Advent Swap lately with the craft group I am a member of and thought I'd show you my contribution.  Each year we are given a number and we are to create 26 ATCs with that number and place them in an envelope only with our number.  So starting December 1st we have a creative Advent envelope to open each day.  This year I have #24.  In the past when I had #4 for example I would chose an image with 4 of something, but this year I went the easy way out. 

I chose and older Poinsettia image from Magenta and hand coloured the stamp with my SU! markers, huffed on it then stamped it onto the mustard ATC.  The greeting is by Our Daily Bread.  I created the envelope with the Envelope Maker by We R Memory Keepers.  SUPER fun tool!  I do not remember who makes the number stamp.  If you look carefully, you can see the 24 I coloured with my black marker after I inked the stamp in red :)

Keep Stamping!